The Choice is Yours

Seas that are shaken and stirred
Can be calmed and broken for my regard

– It is Well, Bethel Music –

 

As with all my writing I often write, rewrite and then delete the entire draft and then go and pretend I wrote about nothing but clearly, I persevered this time because here you are reading this post. We have entered a lock down here in South Africa and this has caused panic, anxiety or peace in some. This post is not a COVID-19 post, but it is a post based on anxiety in all situations. I am in no way a professional regarding the topic, but I am someone who personally battles it.

I am a person who battles with anxiety and if I am not careful it can lead to depression. I was diagnosed with it officially in October last year. Now when the diagnosis occurred did not mean that is when my anxiety began. I have battled for a while before that and it honestly comes and goes. I once went three years without a single panic attack. I cannot tell you exactly the day my anxiety originally started but I can share what I have learned now that I am older and not a 12-year-old battling with anxiety and suicidal thoughts.

The day I realised I desperately needed help was when I went three weeks without sleeping more than four hours a night. I would cry and be fearful of losing my mother, my boyfriend, my family, myself, my animals. Every. Single. Night. I would be in a state where my mom would have to hold me, pray and tell me to breathe. I would wake up the next morning being so exhausted because I would wake up every two hours in a panic and battle to sleep. When all of this happened, I got frustrated with myself and started wondering if my faith wasn’t strong enough because why are these things happening to me. I was scared to talk about it to anyone and sometimes even tried to avoid talking about it to my mom, boyfriend and best friend and I still sometimes do this. I felt unworthy and this caused my anxiety to heighten beyond belief.

Anxiety. What a weird concept. I don’t think there is anyway to truly understand it but being who I am I challenged myself to understand it as best as I could in order to help myself combat it. I noted triggers, I noted non-triggers, I noted times of the day where it would feel worse and when it would feel better. Keeping a journal helped for a bit but the thing is I still got anxious. I still sat doing absolutely nothing, thinking about nothing and could feel a panic attack coming. My panic attacks didn’t look like those you see in the movies but instead it looked like I zoned out and inside it felt like I was crashing into myself. It would and still does exhaust me beyond repair. It is now six months since the diagnosis and things are better, but the anxiety isn’t gone.

Now that you have a broader view on how the past six months have looked, I am going to share what I have learned in my darker/ darkest times. Firstly, if you are feeling like this or even worse I need you to know that God loves you. He honestly does and He does not think you are unworthy because you are feeling like this. In 1 Kings 19 when Elijah felt like this God didn’t just tell him to pull himself together but instead gave him food and let him to go sleep and then woke up him up again to eat. Sometimes that’s what you need to do: eat and sleep. What this Bible passage taught me is that you cannot let your body suffer when your mind is already suffering. It was so easy for me to just stop and cave in under the demise of my mind. I was not even hungry. I didn’t want to brush my hair. I didn’t want to get out of bed some days, but it is vital that you care for your body when your mind doesn’t want you to.

I made it a routine to throw myself into exercise – if you know me you will know that I don’t like exercise… well I didn’t like exercise. I hated the concept. I was given a fast metabolism and used it as an excuse not to exercise. My boyfriend and a friend however have taught me alongside Brooke Ence that you don’t exercise for your appearance but you exercise for your health and this includes mental and physical health and let me be honest spiritual health as well. When I did not feel like exercising the most, I knew I needed it even more. Now it does not mean you should exercise for two hours everyday but at least get your heart racing. Challenging your body is good for your mind. Knowing that my body is capable of things helps my mind. This does not mean you have to be able to do fifty push ups because your friend can but it means that if you could do five push ups yesterday and you manage to do even one today you are doing great! You are moving.

 

Praying. Sounds so cliché but when the panic attack would come, I would stop and pray and try to battle it as best as I can. Sometimes the panic attacks would be so bad that I couldn’t do this, but I would listen to praise and worship music during those times and people closest to me would pray for me when I couldn’t utter a single word. Your soul needs to hear the encouragement even if you aren’t the one encouraging it. Listen to the song that uplifts you. Mine is It is Well as I quoted at the beginning of the blog post. Even when it feels not so well with my soul I remind myself that God is good and if my focus is on Him it doesn’t stop the panic but it alleviates it. If you don’t have a support structure or are battling silently please do contact me or tell someone you are close to so they can be there.

Understanding. My battle with anxiety came with realising that not everyone understands, and you cannot be upset at them for not understanding but choose to educate them. I know some days I get such irrational thoughts that I start to doubt and overthink everything and unfortunately those closest to me feel the brunt of this more than anyone. If tones change, if emojis change, if responses change, if they get busy on these days, I honestly have to fight with everything within me to stop my irrational thinking. Now please don’t go and tip toe around me wondering if today is one of those days because as I have said I have learned how to control all these days a bit better. In these irrational moments I choose to take a nap, exercise, read, watch a senseless YouTube video or watch an episode of Friends. Do teach those closest to you about these days and how they can be of support. I literally send one word to those closest to me and that word is reassurance and they know immediately what that means, and they would message me, send me a quote or call me and talk me through it.

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When your irrational thoughts start to damage your relationships, you do need to start by taking a step back and actually write things down and revisit it once the irrational feelings are gone. Irrational thoughts are almost like dreams as we see in the movie Inception. A minute in reality could be an hour in the dream world. The irrational thinking feels much more complicated, dragged out and stressful than what is actually going on. Your friend did not replace you just because they are talking to someone else. Breathe. Relax. It is going to be fine. Go onto Pinterest when you need encouragement. Draw. Run. Read the Bible or just sit in silence.

God gave me peace when it felt like the anxiety was strangling me and taught me how to do things scared. It isn’t easy. I haven’t mastered this art but I have learned how to look to the truth when the waves of uncertainty and the mind goes into lock down. The truth is that God is there and that is all I need to know when it feels like everything is closing in and I cannot go out. You do not need to be perfect because God meets you where you are. Please do not feel bad if your anxiety is out of whack – you didn’t do anything wrong. Anxiety changes you. Depression changes you. It is up to us to let it change us for the better.

Choose what you listen to, what you read and who you are around. I cannot read every single corona virus post because I know what it will do to me. I couldn’t follow every single rape case in South Africa because it overwhelmed me.

I was lost in a moment
A glimmer in time
Like a child chasing shadows
My back to the light
I was lost in a fog till You caught my eye
Through the smoke and the mirrors
A glimmer of life

–Glimmer in Dust, Hillsong Worship –

I was honestly so lost. Deep in my relationship with God and feeling so bad for everyone who had to watch me learn how to cope because I didn’t have this thing down and I honestly hate not knowing how to do something. It irks my very being feeling out of control. So my irritation spilled over into my life in more ways than I would like to admit.

“I think and think and think, I’ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”

– Jonathan Safran Foer –

 

During this lock down, during this life I pray and hope that we are able to find routine and good cycles of thinking, praying and living. Don’t feel pressured to get up every day and read but do get up every day and achieve one thing. Your mind will thank you for it. You need to try and battle your own mind in the misfiring. Try and figure out why you are thinking the way you are thinking and take captive your thoughts as best as you can. It won’t happen overnight and might not even happen in a few months but I promise it will happen. We can and will kick anxiety in the glutes. Lockdown has resulted in my emotions and my neediness to be heightened and I end up texting people a million times in a day and forget they have routines all because my feelings are strange. I need to learn how to combat this because it is foreign territory but with every anxiety battle it results in learning new things and new ways of figuring life out.

 As you walk through the valley of the unknown, you will find the footprints of Jesus both in front of you and beside you.

– Charles Stanley –

To those who have been with me on the journey – thank you for your love and support and for being so patient and understanding.

To those on this journey – we will get through it and you do not need to rush it. Remember routine brings freedom.

To those who have just discovered this journey – pray for me and all those who do battle.

A Christian’s freedom from anxiety is not due to some guaranteed freedom from trouble, but to the folly of worry and especially to the confidence that God is our Father, that even permitted suffering is within the orbit of His care.

– John Stott –

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The waves and wind still know His name

– It is Well, Bethel Music –

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